I am often asked what I’m reading and what are my favorite books. The following is a somewhat random list in no particular order. It’s also woefully incomplete, though I will add to it as I remember what I’ve forgotten and as I continue to read.

Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn

The Known World, Edward P. Jones

Middle Passage, Charles Johnson

Wemberly Worried, Kevin Henkes

Beloved, Toni Morrison

Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

The Color Purple, Alice Walker

I’ve Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots, Susan Straight

The Vintner’s Luck, Elizabeth Knox

Bridge to Terebithia, Katherine Paterson

Alan and Naomi, Myron Levoy

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese

Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Soer

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, Michael Chabon

Elsie Dinsmore, Martha Finley

Old Filth, Jane Gardam

Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean M. Auel

Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card

Songmaster, Orson Scott Card

Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, J.K. Rowling

The Brothers Lionheart, Astrid Lindgren

Go and Come Back, Joan Abelove

Blue Suburbia, Laurie Lico-Albanese

I am an Evil Genius and I Want to be Class President, Josh Lieb

The World According to Garp, John Irving

A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving

Into Thin Air, Jon Kraukauer

Mandy, Julie Andrews

A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

Alive, Piers Paul Reid

The Help, Kathryn Stockett

Fortunes’ Rocks, Anita Shreve

Firestarter, Stephen King

Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood

The Children of the Company, Kage Baker

Bel Canto, Ann Patchett

The Lottery Rose, Irene Hunt

Regeneration, Pat Barker

Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand

Bloodbrothers, Richard Price

Otis Spifford, Beverly Cleary

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis

The Odyssey, Homer

The Iliad, Homer

The Brain That Changes Itself, Norman Doidge

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson

Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America, Nathaniel Frank

Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

Watership Down, Richard Adams

The Passage, Justin Cronin

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Judy Blume

A Mango Shaped Space, Wendy Mass

To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee

She’s Come Undone, Wally Lamb

Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt

Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston

Freedom, Jonathan Franzen

What Girls Learn, Karin Cook

The Gate to Women’s Country, Sheri S. Tepper

The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wou, Junot Diaz

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey

The Giver, Lois Lowry

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou

The Facts Speak for Themselves, Brock Cole

Summer of My German Soldier, Bette Green

The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien

Always Running, Luiz Rodriguez

Julie of the Wolves, Jean Craighead George

Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck

The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton

Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides

Caddie Woodlawn, Carol Ryrie Brink

Room, Emma Donoghue

The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner

Love Story, Erich Segal

The Road, Cormac McCarthy

The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck

Fifth Child, Doris Lessing

We of the Never Never, Jeannie Gunn

Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes

Lying, Lauren Slater

Lying on the Couch, Dr. Irvin Yalom

Oil, Upton Sinclair

The Fortress of Solitude, Jonathan Lethem

Me and My Little Brain, John D. Fitzgerald

The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Beverly Cleary

What is the What, Dave Eggers

Bless the Beasts and Children, Glendon Swarthout

Emma, Jane Austen

Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, Laura Hillenbrand